Traditional, or CGI Animation

[mbaker]

Just want to know what you prefer. I myself prefer traditional animation over CGI, but I like when both are used in the same film.

[Leaping Larry Jojo]

I prefer hand drawn, or 2D digital as a second option.

I have an intense bias against full CGI. It just rubs me the wrong way. I don't mind it as special effects, but I don't "get" the visual appeal of films like Shrek or Toy Story.

[cjshoup]

Originally posted by mbaker
Just want to know what you prefer. I myself prefer traditional animation over CGI, but I like when both are used in the same film.

I agree with you mbaker. Some scenes would be impossible without the use of CGI, plus it makes the scenes better (like the Levithan scene in Atlantis)

It can also backfire doing an entire movie in CGI (Final Fantsay, It should have been both, not just CGI)

[James Harvey]

CGI is cool and all, but you just can't beat traditional animation. No way, no how.

[RogueMartian]

I'm a traditional person, and as far as I'm concerned, CGI has nothing on hand drawings. CGI seems slow and forced. I have no problem with enhancing some 2D stuff with CGI, like what was done in Cowboy Bebop or other shows like that, but all CGI movies or tv shows bother me.

[Blue Priestess]

I don't mind CGI, but it just doesn't feel as organic as traditional. And I REALLY don't like to see them blended. Yeah, it's been pulled off a few times (Atlantis, Futurama), but on the whole, it's a jarring difference of styles and really distracts from the more important things like story (although, in some cases, that's a good thing). If I had a choice, I'd sooner see a traditionally animated show or movie, or work on one.

Mela

[Failure]

All-CGI movies like Toy Story look cool at first, but then the novelty sort of wears off. Personally, I like it best when there's a seamless blend of CGI with traditional. Then the CGI just serves as a nice dynamic to the traditional. But when they're blended poorly, it gets ugly.

[I.R Joey]

I like it when the CG and the cel animation blend so well that you can't tell which is which. I also think that some shows come out looking alot worse when they just paint everything digitally (when done right it looks good, but when done wrong it looks to glossy and bright.)

[Jack]

I actually get a kick out of seeing things done the traditional hand-done way. I don't know why, but CGI effects, while they can be very good, don't really thrill me. I sort of like seeing the differnt layers in a background moving at a different pace to imply depth rather than a computer-generated landscape that actually moves like it has depth. I like seeing brush strokes and airbrush effects.


Jack :D

[Anubis C. Soundwave]

Full CG in general either tends to be too dark/gloomy or, if the colors are lighter, too washed out/dry/colorless.

I like animation with color, like a comic book.

For example, when I say I'd love to see Calvin and Hobbes[strip] or Elf Quest[graphic novel/comic book] animated, I mean cel animated.

When CG animation enhances cel animation, you don't notice. [that's the point. :)] When it jars cel animation...you know.

Blue Sub #6, and my personal favorite, FOX's Spider Man.

The latter not only had several disgusting CG sequences done on MS Paint, but they were reused as stock footage over the course of the show. :rolleyes

And while we can get gems like ReBoot or Shrek, and definitely Roughnecks; what we usually get are magnificent shows such as...the Butt-Ugly Martians. :D

And my personal, number one reason why CGI is not my friend for life:

VOLTRON: The Third Dimension.

You think making a CG Voltron will save you from the Wrath of Zarkon[TM]?

Yes, I know that the cel animation of Golion looks like a hairball that MSG 0079 and Space Cruiser Yamato hacked up. But if World Events wanted to do an updated version of Voltron, why not go back to the folks at Toei once again? By the time of V3D, they had Sailor Moon and the Dragon Ball sagas under their belt.

Or, if there was a need for new animation, why not Sunrise--the best in the business?

If they really NEEDED a full CGI show...why couldn't they find Mainframe or the crew at Roughnecks. Or Pixar. If you're going to do a CGI show, do it right.

But no, WE wasted money making Lotor/Sincline look like he just walked off the set of Fist of the North Star 3D.

[of course, there are bigger reasons than "type of animation medium" that make BUM and V3D terrible, but the CG for the sake of CG really drove this home for me. I watched Spidey 95 and enjoyed it despite the bad CG; suffered through all of TRAoJQ's early Questworld eps and bad CGI in general. I could watch the last two shows; but the first...the CGI just made a bad thing worse.]

One all-CG show had potential, and they blew it. Donkey Kong Country. The color still had that washed out problem, but...the game itself was CGI, and loveable. Why couldn't the show have been that way. [all they really needed were two different voices for DK and Diddy, the REAL Candy, and a Brit/Aussie voice for Dixie....]

So really...while I prefer cel animation overall, I also dislike CG animations because they tend to be that way to disguise bad show premises.

Super Cool Fresh...Rocking Ball, anyone?

BUM would never have been on TV if it were cel animated, or even animated like ZIM(a GOOD use of CG.). But because CG renders make everything "Super Cool Fresh...Rocking Ball", we must remove Zim for it. :rolleyes

But now to the beauty of cel animation. It is art in motion. The animator IS Splatter Phoenix.[if you don't know who that is, shame on you. Watch the terror that flaps in the night.]

I draw. I KNOW how hard it is to get that character to look just right. And to choose the right colors...nigh impossible. Achieve the right color effect and whatnot.

It's beautiful. Perhaps there's even beauty in CatDog.(his ancestor WAS on an old Looney Tunes short. Wackyland, actually.)

Art styles differ. And then you see older series in black and white. It has a raw feel to it in the Bosco/old Betty Boop bit.

Watch the CN Groovie "Rollin' " [soul coughing]. The song itself is catchy though nonsensical; the animation felt very nice.

Or even see the B&W "cast" of the B:TAS opening bumper on Toonami.

Finally, watch a show you like in black and white.

What I'm trying to say is that in part, cel animation is atmospheric, while CG animation is realistic. Unless you have something like FF: The Spirits Within(which I think would work), you need cel animation in whole or in part. You have to make the impossibles possible.

Maybe that's why I liked Transformers G1 more than Beast Wars/Machines, despite the latter's clearly superior plot.

The latter went for realism. Reality is where we actually live even when we watch TV. You have to make a compelling argument for more realism outside a world chock-full of it.

Therefore, realism isn't the point. By doing so, the writers merely impose restrictions on a fantasy world. And thus, the CG looks fake.

Whereas in G1:

You had Prime, a truck that becomes a tall, noble warrior robot; versus Megatron, a vicious yet charismatic war general who transforms into a lethal super Walther P-38. The dreaded aura of menace that brought chills of excitement to me [regarding Megatron]could not be equaled until the arrival of Wing Zero to the Gundam mythos, the horror of the Libra's main cannon, or the sheer, death bringing malice of the Apsalas.

And remember my earlier comment. My point there: Shiny and new doesn't necessarily mean quality. Prove that you have a show beneath those algorhythms, then we'll talk.

Maybe it's a personal thing. CG animation feels dry, clinical. Too realistic to be "real". Whereas in cel animation, everything proceeds according to the physics of that animated world; it doesn't follow our rules, but its own.

How can I say this? Ranma 1/2 is a world of its own, separate and distinct from The Big O. But...when a CG series tries the same effects, it can be deadly.

Remember the PIPs on Beast Machines that would spoil scenes for you, the attempts at anime rush streaks, et al? ACK.

= =

It's all suspension of disbelief. And, cel animation can do that for me consistently.

This was probably long. :)

[ButteredToast]

I'm a big (and I mean BIG) fan of CG animation, but you just can't beat traditional cel drawn animation. Let me pull a little chunk of a discussion from an animator's forum for an example...



As for this attempt to bring Mickey into the CGI world, all I can do is shake my head and cringe. Do these fools not realize that Mickey is designed for the wonderful illusion of traditional drawn animation? As an artist who has spent the better part of the last 17 years of my life drawing Mickey, I can personally attest to this fact.

As everybody knows, Mickey's ears are the ultimate animated illusion, always remaining basically circular in shape, simply rolling around the head shape as Mickey turns, yet we perceive them as flat discs. Likewise, Mickey's mouth veers from one side of his face to the other as he turns, yet our eyes do not see this as unnatural. Even his nose requires deft repositioning lower on the muzzle as he goes from a side to a front view, otherwise it would be obscuring his eyes. And what about those wonderfully oversized brim hats that the jaunty Mickey favoured in such films as "The Little Whirlwind" and "The Nifty Nineties"? Physically, they could never have fit between his ears, were it not for the clever animator who would make one ear pop in front of the hat in a side view, then make it pop behind the hat again when Mickey turns to face the camera once more.

[Pilmedium]

CGI is a way to do "animation" without any art or talent. CGI shows/movies just strike me as weird-looking.

[oranthal]

wow, CGI is really getting the snubb.

[LazyReaper]

CG isn't necessarly all that bad. I think that if you want to make a great CGI show, you'll also have to add some traditional art in aswell. Full CGI shows tend to get boring and slow after a while. I think that the main draw back. It's probably something that the animators will to work more on to get right.

I just hope that the new Spiderman show doesn't end up like Max Steel. Beast Wars and Reboot did great when they first came out. hopefully Spiderman follows the same path.


-Aximlli-

[Carnage]

I prefer traditional animation to CGI also. Although CGI movies aren't bad. I really like when they combine the 2 though, such as in Titan A.E. That movie had great animation and some of the explosions and such looked great, due to CGI.

-Carnage-

[The Mad Hatter]

I honestly don't think CGI is bad, either. I think the mistake CGI artists make is to create something as realistic as possible... well, if you want something realistic, why bother animating it? Me, I didn't dig the "realistic" designs of Shrek, for example.

However, in the hands of talented artists CGI can look great... I like how Pixar goes out of its way to stylize everything it does, realism be damned.

But yes, I do sorely love the more organic feel of hand-drawn animation, and I bristle whenever that git at Entertainment Weekly rails against 2D animation for no apparent reason.